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Category Archives: Travel

It’s been a season of head-over-heels, back-breaking, sleep-deprived, responsibilities-overload, Ridiculous-complaints, but patience-growing, body-understanding, spine-alignment, better-health and death-defying season.

😀 damn drama, this Amanda.
Seriously, these words cannot even begin to describe what I have gone through these 2 months.

Started with the chiropractic treatment, turns out I have non-textbook categorized scoliosis (basically it’s not so bad that it cld categorize as that, but neither is it so mild that it’s negligible), I have 2 2nd phase degeneration (takes over 10yrs to develop) (a bit too young for that) misalignment in the spinal area between my shoulder blades and lower back (think slipped disc). my neck is a little too straight for my own good.
That means, I need to stop wearing heels so that the 50yrs old will thank me. need to go for adjustment 3 times a week for first 3mths n whatever follows follows, which amounts to nerve hyper-sensitivity, which I felt caused the REM images to be so vivid, and light sleep becomes consciousness (for the past 2 months). I have no life, n as a form of therapy, the heart wld induce the body to cook (for others) therefore further reducing rest time (cooking! the marketing, the cleaning, the smell.. heavenly but not good for a open concept studio, at the same time)

on and we top it up with demands at work. well, everyone faces them. except that this happen to be a real tight semester w Prefects training n investiture at the same season. did I mention about how effective and on time some Indonesian ppl are? but well, the training went fine, the investiture was over, many thanks to great people that are involved.

the usually don’t come at all PMS hormones swing that is regulating and therefore pretty on-the-ball these 2mths? nobody likes to deal with hyper-happiness in the mind on 1 day (bcos the events for that day went well, PRAISE THE LORD!) and tearing the next bcos the family members n loved ones of the finalist for master chef came n visit (so touching! u know! family support! how long have they not seen each other and how much it meant to them. … )

oh, did I mention the still-unknown cause of the inflammation/rash at the back of the left knee, thigh? cld have been the seats of the flight, or attack frm “tomcat” insect, known to have caused death, w poison 12 times more potent than snake bites. the traumatizing effects of seeing a muscular, well-sculpt female leg (nice thigh n calves btw) plague with a bigger than palm-sized, ugly, red-black-peeling-dark grey patch. yes, I absolutely love my legs. but praise the Lord, besides the discoloration it’s not giving me any problems now.

all these…

and frequent flying, of 6 times in that 2 months. I really don’t like flying, but I’ve found ways to cope w it.

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

Wanted to do the Serenity Prayer for the longest time. set it as my wallpaper.
I knew that the thigh is pretty much the only reasonable space for the next tattoo.
didnt get around to doing it bcos I was thinking, next time cellulite develops, it will look bad..

with that patch, forget it man, there’s no uglier thing that could happen to my legs. so there we are!
even had a whole dilemma to put leopard or not, same, it’s something I wanted. but obviously didn’t happen.

it’s the term break, since I’m not going anywhere (other countries/state as a holiday break) I really should do something that I had wanted to do. 🙂

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can’t change, the courage to change the things I can, the wisdom to know the difference.”

24-27-30
I wonder how old I wld be when the next finds itself on me. From the mind to the body.

– Normal surgical masks are not effective in filtering fine particles (i.e. tiny particles that are 2.5 microns or less in width), although they can reduce the discomfort cause by haze by providing a barrier between the wearer’s nose and mouth, and larger irritant particles in the air.

14. Are surgical masks the same as N95 masks?

– Surgical masks and N95 masks are different and were made for different purposes. Surgical masks were designed to protect the surrounding environment from the user’s own spit or mucous. Healthcare professionals use them (e.g. in an operating theatre) to prevent their own germs from infecting the patient.

– N95 masks were designed to protect the wearer from airborne particles. Studies have shown that they are at least 95% efficient against fine particles that are about 0.1 – 0.3 microns, assuming good fit on the wearer’s face.

It was about a month and a couple of weeks ago, was just doing the regular prayers.
Committing and praying about the plans ahead.
Who dont right? 😀
Was asking the Lord about the future, sharing the doubts, asking where to go after my years in Jakarta are finished.

Through the conversations with friends and colleagues, plenty of opportunities were available.
Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, (just heard recently) London.

But thats the thing about having opportunities, its really not that easy to decide.
Especially considering Singapore is a good ground and my parents are still here.
So how?

It was a long stretch, been praying about it for a really long time.

So that night, after an interesting encounter, I felt a prompting in the heart, Korea. (nope, dunno if its South Korea or North Korea).

It was like a burden has been lifted off.

Although its clear that it would not be easy.

I thought I should visit South Korea as a birthday trip as well.
2 items were bugging in my heart, the future in terms of career and the future in terms of marriage. Who knows what that prompting was for right? only “God knows” as they said.

I went ahead and made plans. Even choosing not to have the refund facility available for flight tickets purchase, (dumb dumb…) so I die die will go.
I purposely chose the flight that had a stopover in Japan.

THEN!
The MERS scare came along.
Not just about making wise decisions (despite of prompting) regards myself,
but also the need to think about the home
and the students in contact.

albeit there is a 3 weeks gap before getting back into classroom.
and that South Korea has one of the best medical and cellphone tracking system
and that the advise was to observe if there were more cases, if there is means initial measures were insufficient, therefore should avoid.

So… me of little faith, I went back to the Lord again… 😀
and as we know, He doesnt answer us as and when we want and His ways are always higher than our ways.

I thought I could do the lots thing to appease myself.

and having been with the Lord for years, I know… He won’t give me an immediate answer. 😀
So I listed a couple of possibility and a blank.

and we know which one I picked:

😀 Its a joke. 🙁 but well. 🙂 I am not surprised. cos thats Just how He is. 🙂
With faith.

OH MY GOODNESS!!!!
There are like so many things to see and do in Jeju!

Interesting waterfall, caves, structures and formation..

In the end, instead of trying to do everything, I settled with doing the Ollie Routes.
The easy ones of course. 😀 albeit long distance ones.

Olle Routes are routes marked out in Jeju-do (Jeju-island) itself. Meaning from the start point, you’ll get to walk free and easy, guided by blue and yellow arrows on rocks and orange and blue ribbons on trees. Pretty awesome a?

While there are bus, I heard its not extremely good. and their Taxi fare goes by calculation of km multiply by an amount. 🙁 seems confusing to me.
oh well..

guess thats the good thing about getting on Olle Routes
http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/SI/SI_EN_3_4_12_13.jsp

Planning for this Korea trip has been quite a journey…
Not just the selection of location part, even the reading through and putting things into proper pieces took its toll on me.

Lets talk about me first.
Yup,
ME. 😀

I’ve always pride myself in being an introvert, a person with OCD symptoms.
This whole journey of planning for the trip really put things into perspective for me.

So, I’ve intended to spend a weekend working on the itinerary. Having started reading on physical books, I was glad Im more or less ahead.

Friday came, I chilled out, cos I wasn’t in the mood.

Saturday came, still chilling,
then its 5pm, ok, time to start, so I started on it. Had to do a Seoul one and a Jeju one.

Collected the information into a notepad.

Worked all the way into 3am. Managed to more or less put Jeju one together. Refusing to go to sleep bcos I really want to achieve something, I pressed on…
Suddenly its 4:30am.

So I stopped and went to sleep.
Woke up feeling light-headed and heart heavy bcos what I’ve started on is not finished yet.
Don’t feel like working on it as theres that bitter taste.
Ignored it and then finally started on it in the evening,
went to sleep on time.

Went to work, came back. felt the nagging impulse to do it, but still the bitter taste is nagging, okay, I shall not work on it bcos I won’t feel good going to work the next day.

and so this whole nagging impulse and bitter taste kept going on and on.
To the extend that I felt like running away from it entirely (a.k.a fly back to SG and not be bothered about it cos I don’t have the things with me)

and of cos after a period of not doing anything and resting up, I got it finished in the end.
and thats the thing I realise about me.

I understood it is therefore important for me to divide up the task and take time to complete a huge project.

If I began on a task intending to finish it there and then, its not gonna end well.

Speaking of traveling… I set a vision for myself. I want to take a photo of the 12 apostles before it becomes dunno how many apostles left. 😀

and was sitting in a car the other day, was pretty provoked by myself. Or probably the bus, after a meal w Iris, and I felt it in my heart.
I shall go to Paris and visit the Eiffel tower as a graduation celebration after my UniSIM.

Yup, UniSIM…. Its not going to be easy, hadn’t been, neither will be.

😀 and on that note, nobody said anything about not going before the graduation. 😀

HAHA!

Hmm… and I was strategizing, you know the French speaking people, they kinda not appreciate people trying to speak English to them? 😀
Okay! I shall speak in Chinese the whole time that I am there. 😀